Additional fuel taxes are political suicide. Even if only proposed, they will cause a huge voter backlash, and make further Republican majorities in Congress and the Senate, and guarantee Trump a second term. Those are just the realities in the most wealthy country on this planet, among the retired or unemployed American citizens who are still numbered among the wealthiest 1% in the world. Because just about everybody wants more than they can afford.

The candidates who strike the right balance of talking Green and promising additional prosperity will win office. Likely that will be Trump and the R's. BAU in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

KaiserJeep wrote:Additional fuel taxes are political suicide. Even if only proposed, they will cause a huge voter backlash, and make further Republican majorities in Congress and the Senate, and guarantee Trump a second term. Those are just the realities in the most wealthy country on this planet, among the retired or unemployed American citizens who are still numbered among the wealthiest 1% in the world. Because just about everybody wants more than they can afford.

The candidates who strike the right balance of talking Green and promising additional prosperity will win office. Likely that will be Trump and the R's. BAU in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Agreed. It's too bad the dems, who at least tend to TALK a green game (compared to the GOP) don't try a more intelligent path to get fuel taxes raised.

For example, they could call it a roads and bridges infrastructure tax, and raise the price by a dime or so, each year for a number of years. And they could actually USE the money for roads and bridges until those are all in great shape (probably would take two decades or more), and then use it for plenty of other critical infrastructure needs. (I like reliable and safe drinking water, reliable electricity, natural gas, and on and on).

And the desired marginal push against FF burning in ICE's would be achieved.

They could at least seriously TRY this, and likely gain some left wing fans to compensate for the obvious right wing booing.

...

But of course, thinking like this is why I know da*n well I'd never be elected anything. Telling the truth and being principled (I'd tell the lobbyists to go F. themselves) don't keep you in office in the good old US.

Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.

Don't think they will ever fix it all and have everything in spanking new condition. There are just too many miles of roads, pipelines, sewer lines, railroad tracks, water mains, and electric grid etc. out there to ever fix it all faster then it is rusting around you. Even the interstate highway system which was built on a very aggressive schedule had sections and bridges that needed to be reworked before the last sections were complete for the first time. A dime increase in the gas tax , if well spent, would let you catch up with the rate of rust, and the rate of rut, at the same time as it boosted the economy and employment but the roads are just not bad enough yet to get public support for that dime. Let a few bridges get closed or fall down and things will come to a head.

vtsnowedin wrote:Don't think they will ever fix it all and have everything in spanking new condition. There are just too many miles of roads, pipelines, sewer lines, railroad tracks, water mains, and electric grid etc. out there to ever fix it all faster then it is rusting around you. Even the interstate highway system which was built on a very aggressive schedule had sections and bridges that needed to be reworked before the last sections were complete for the first time. A dime increase in the gas tax , if well spent, would let you catch up with the rate of rust, and the rate of rut, at the same time as it boosted the economy and employment but the roads are just not bad enough yet to get public support for that dime. Let a few bridges get closed or fall down and things will come to a head.

gotta leave something for the chinese to work on when 400 million move in here.

"There must be a bogeyman; there always is, and it cannot be something as esoteric as "resource depletion." You can't go to war with that." Emersonbiggins

vtsnowedin wrote:Don't think they will ever fix it all and have everything in spanking new condition. There are just too many miles of roads, pipelines, sewer lines, railroad tracks, water mains, and electric grid etc. out there to ever fix it all faster then it is rusting around you. Even the interstate highway system which was built on a very aggressive schedule had sections and bridges that needed to be reworked before the last sections were complete for the first time. A dime increase in the gas tax , if well spent, would let you catch up with the rate of rust, and the rate of rut, at the same time as it boosted the economy and employment but the roads are just not bad enough yet to get public support for that dime. Let a few bridges get closed or fall down and things will come to a head.

gotta leave something for the chinese to work on when 400 million move in here.

Did you learn this while on walkabout during your years in the wildness after you became scared of the 2008 recession rocc? Spent some time in China, as opposed to banana republics down south looking for a fine Inca princess to help dig up your buried gold for the mad max days after you fled BAU? The grid in Phoenix must be down by now, weren't you telling people to max out their credit cards to escape the zombies? Did you ever even find a SINGLE zombie?

Peak oil in 2020: And here is why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b3ttqYDwF0

vtsnowedin wrote:Don't think they will ever fix it all and have everything in spanking new condition. There are just too many miles of roads, pipelines, sewer lines, railroad tracks, water mains, and electric grid etc. out there to ever fix it all faster then it is rusting around you. Even the interstate highway system which was built on a very aggressive schedule had sections and bridges that needed to be reworked before the last sections were complete for the first time. A dime increase in the gas tax , if well spent, would let you catch up with the rate of rust, and the rate of rut, at the same time as it boosted the economy and employment but the roads are just not bad enough yet to get public support for that dime. Let a few bridges get closed or fall down and things will come to a head.

gotta leave something for the chinese to work on when 400 million move in here.

Did you learn this while on walkabout during your years in the wildness after you became scared of the 2008 recession rocc? Spent some time in China, as opposed to banana republics down south looking for a fine Inca princess to help dig up your buried gold for the mad max days after you fled BAU? The grid in Phoenix must be down by now, weren't you telling people to max out their credit cards to escape the zombies? Did you ever even find a SINGLE zombie?

You want to know why I am optimistic? Because I live in a different world than most of you. My optimism comes from working hard to make things better.

I told you about the 1.3 Mwatt system we contracted. It is the biggest net-metered system in the state of NC. Only because that is Duke Power's limit. We wouldn't want to fry their fragile grid now would we My boss said yesterday to complete the training for the Tesla Powerpack. In a few years we will be specifying a Powerpack system to make them independent.

A Solar fuel spill is otherwise known as a sunny day!The energy density of a tank of FF's doesn't matter if it's empty.I will see your google and raise you an infinity!https://monitoringpublic.solaredge.com/solaredge-web/p/kiosk?guid=19844186-d749-40d6-b848-191e899b37db

A Solar fuel spill is otherwise known as a sunny day!The energy density of a tank of FF's doesn't matter if it's empty.I will see your google and raise you an infinity!https://monitoringpublic.solaredge.com/solaredge-web/p/kiosk?guid=19844186-d749-40d6-b848-191e899b37db

vtsnowedin wrote:Don't think they will ever fix it all and have everything in spanking new condition. There are just too many miles of roads, pipelines, sewer lines, railroad tracks, water mains, and electric grid etc. out there to ever fix it all faster then it is rusting around you.

Oh absolutely. I'm not even remotely pondering having it "all" in anything close to new or even excellent condition. I'm just talking about getting, for example, the bridges to the point where one doesn't have to worry about any of them coming down within a few years because of a real bad storm, etc.

Or the roads to where they are in consistently reasonable condition re potholes, chronic flooding in heavy rains, having signs and signals where appropriate and well enough maintained to consistently see and rely on, etc.

In other words, a reasonable turnover of maintenance to have a reasonably safe and reliable road and bridge network.

There is a tremendous amount of room between some middling ground like that and what we have.

Unlike most voters, I realize that you don't get such maintenance without paying for it. And IMO, who better to pay for it than the people who USE it (drivers of all kinds)?

Outcast_Searcher wrote:-snip-It's really too bad when the system is so screwed up that the faith in it is so bad that voters won't support doing rational maintenance on the infrastructure our lives depend on over time.

Please, we are adults here, and understand that the electorate is a dumb unthinking beast and that the government is a greedy bunch of self-serving confidence men.

Government is a necessary evil. The reason it is necessary is that people do not act naturally for mutual benefit. That's why we have government, laws, police, and ultimately armed forces. The problem being that all of those groups share the basic corrupt nature of the populace.

I have known decent honorable men and women who serve in government, law enforcement, and the armed forces. I have known decent ordinary folks, and make all efforts to live among them. But decency, honesty, and a desire to benefit your fellow man can never be assumed.

If all goes well, a massive fireball of hydrocarbons will ignite in the New Mexico desert some time in the next year. It will be part of a multiyear Department of Energy research project to understand whether the chemical composition of unconventional crude oils changes the risk they pose to the nation’s highways, pipelines, and railroads. If all doesn’t go well, a similar massive fireball could go up over a derailed train, as happened in the town of Lac-Mégantic in July of 2013, killing 42 people, or outside Casselton, North Dakota, in December of that year, where somehow there were no reported injuries. These explosions, and several other high-profile derailments and spills, called attention to the danger of transporting crude oil in unprecedented amounts on the North American rail system. As more pipelines have come into play, the rail-transport boom out of

Renewable power accounted for 70% of net additions to global power generating capacity in 2017. Renewable power generation capacity saw its largest annual increase ever with an estimated 178 gigawatts added globally. New solar photovoltaic generating capacity alone was greater than additions in coal, natural gas and nuclear power combined. And while China, Europe and the United States accounted for nearly 75% of the global investment in renewable power and fuels, 2017 saw significant investment in developing country markets. When measured per unit of gross domestic product, the Marshall Islands, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, Guinea-Bissau and many other developing countries are investing as much as or more in renewables than developed and emerging economies. These positive developments need to be scaled up for a global energy transition.

The year 2017 was another record-breaking one for renewable energy, characterised by the largest ever increase in renewable power capacity, falling costs, increases in investment and advances in enabling technologies. Many developments during the year impacted the deployment of renewable energy, including the lowest-ever bids for renewable power in tenders throughout the world, a significant increase in attention to electrification of transport, increasing digitalisation, jurisdictions pledging to become coal-free, new policies and partnerships on carbon pricing, and new initiatives and goals set by groups of governments at all levels.

Increasingly, sub-national governments are becoming leaders in renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives. At the same time, many developing and emerging countries are expanding their deployment of and investment in renewables and related infrastructure. The private sector is also increasingly playing a role in driving the deployment of renewable energy through its procurement and investment decisions.

HEATING AND COOLINGModern renewable energy supplied approximately 10.3% of total global energy consumption for heat in 2015. Another 16.4% was supplied by traditional biomass, predominantly for cooking and heating in the developing world.

TRANSPORTThe renewable energy share of transport continues to be low (3.1%), with more than 90% provided by liquid biofuels. Electrification of the transport sector expanded in 2017 – with electric vehicles (EVs) exceeding 1% of global light vehicle sales – and a number of countries announced plans to phase out sales of petrol and diesel vehicles. There are signs that the shipping and aviation sectors also may become open to electrification. Further electrification of the transport sector has the potential to create a new market for renewable energy and to facilitate the integration of higher shares of variable renewable energy, provided that the policy and market settings are suitable.

POWERThe electricity transition is well under way, due mostly to increases in installed capacity and in the cost competitiveness of solar PV and wind power. Renewable power generating capacity saw its largest annual increase ever in 2017, raising total capacity by almost 9% over 2016. Overall, renewables accounted for an estimated 70% of net additions to global power capacity in 2017, due in large part to continued improvements in the cost-competitiveness of solar PV and wind power.

EVs will displace about 279,000 bpd of oil this year. Buses account for over 80% of that.

China had about 99 percent of the 385,000 electric buses on the roads worldwide in 2017, accounting for 17 percent of the country’s entire fleet. Every five weeks, Chinese cities add 9,500 of the zero-emissions transporters—the equivalent of London’s entire working fleet.

All this is starting to make an observable reduction in fuel demand. And because they consume 30 times more fuel than average sized cars, their impact on energy use so far has become much greater than the passenger sedans produced by companies from Tesla Inc. to Toyota Motor Corp. For every 1,000 battery-powered buses on the road, about 500 barrels a day of diesel fuel will be displaced from the market. This year, the volume of fuel not needed may rise 37 percent to 279,000 barrels a day because of electric transport including cars and light trucks, about as much oil as Greece consumes. Buses account for about 233,000 barrels of that total. “This segment is approaching the tipping point. City governments all over the world are being taken to task over poor urban air quality. This pressure isn’t going away, and electric bus sales are positioned to benefit.”

China is ahead on electrifying its fleet because it has the world’s worst pollution problem. A decade ago, Shenzhen was a typical example of a booming Chinese city that had given little thought to the environment. Its smog became so notorious that the government picked it for a pilot program for energy conservation and zero emissions vehicles in 2009. Two years later, the first electric buses rolled off BYD’s production line there. And in December, all of Shenzhen’s 16,359 buses were electric. Other cities are taking notice. Paris, London, Mexico City and Los Angeles are among 13 authorities that have committed to only buying zero emissions transport by 2025.